Important:
This is retired content. This content is outdated and is no longer being maintained. It is provided as a courtesy for individuals who are still using these technologies. This content may contain URLs that were valid when originally published, but now link to sites or pages that no longer exist.
A version of this page is also available for
4/8/2010

This function creates a modeless dialog box from a dialog box template in memory.

Syntax 

HWND CreateDialogIndirect( 
  HINSTANCE 
hInstance, 
  LPCDLGTEMPLATE 
lpTemplate, 
  HWND 
hWndParent, 
  DLGPROC 
lpDialogFunc
);

Parameters

hInstance

[in] Handle to the module that creates the dialog box.

lpTemplate

[in] Long pointer to a global memory object containing a template that CreateDialogIndirectuses to create the dialog box. A dialog box template consists of a header that describes the dialog box, followed by one or more additional blocks of data that describe each of the controls in the dialog box. The template can use either the standard format or the extended format.

In a standard template, the header is a DLGTEMPLATEstructure followed by additional variable-length arrays. The data for each control consists of a DLGITEMTEMPLATEstructure followed by additional variable-length arrays.

After CreateDialogIndirectreturns, you can free the template, which is only used to get the dialog box started.

hWndParent

[in] Handle to the window that owns the dialog box.

lpDialogFunc

[in] Long pointer to the dialog box procedure. For more information about the dialog box procedure, see DialogProc.

Return Value

The window handle to the dialog box indicates success. NULL indicates failure. To get extended error information, call GetLastError.

Remarks

The CreateDialogIndirectmacro uses the CreateWindowExfunction to create the dialog box. CreateDialogIndirectthen sends a WM_INITDIALOGmessage to the dialog box procedure. The function displays the dialog box if the template specifies the WS_VISIBLE style. Finally, CreateDialogIndirectreturns the window handle to the dialog box.

After CreateDialogIndirectreturns, you can use the ShowWindowfunction to display the dialog box (if it is not already visible). To destroy the dialog box, use the DestroyWindowfunction.

In a standard dialog box template, the DLGTEMPLATEstructure and each of the DLGITEMTEMPLATEstructures must be aligned on DWORDboundaries. The creation data array that follows a DLGITEMTEMPLATEstructure must also be aligned on a DWORDboundary. All of the other variable-length arrays in the template must be aligned on WORDboundaries.

When you create a dialog box by calling CreateDialogIndirect, the dialog box may not receive messages because an internal structure is not aligned on DWORDboundaries. To get around this problem, call the GetClassInfofunction on the class for the system's dialog box, and examine the value of the cbWndExtraparameter of the WNDCLASSstructure that GetClassInforetrieves.

All character strings in the dialog box template, such as titles for the dialog box and buttons, must be Unicode strings.

Windows Embedded CE does not support all styles in the DLGTEMPLATEstructure. This structure is in the template identified by the lpTemplateparameter .

Requirements

Header winuser.h
Library Dlgmgr.lib
Windows Embedded CE Windows CE 1.0 and later
Windows Mobile Windows Mobile Version 5.0 and later

See Also